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A leader of leaders--Eva Paus, associate professor of economics, has been named head of the Center for Leadership, Advocacy, and Civic Responsibility that will be created under the Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003. According to the latest plan draft, the center will "highlight Mount Holyoke's commitment to fostering active citizenship and strengthen the College's role in preparing women for lives as change agents and leaders in their chosen professions and communities."

Speech, speech--Speaking at May 24 baccalaureate exercises will be assistant professor of politics Preston Smith and former MHC president Elizabeth Kennan.

Show me the money--As you may have already heard, the College is in the planning stages of a comprehensive fundraising campaign to support both annual operating budget costs and the long-term strategic needs of the institution. The specific dollar goal "will be established by a combination of an assessment of the giving capacity of the College's potential donor pool and the amount raised during the 'nucleus fund' stage of the campaign," according to chief advancement officer Charles Haight.. The campaign is expected to begin with a formal kickoff in fall 1998 and conclude in December 2003.

Mary, Mary, revolutionary--Just because her birthday is over doesn't mean we've stopped talking about Mary Lyon's radical accomplishment in starting Mount Holyoke. Penny Gill, professor of politics and Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities, will give a talk titled "From Buckland to the World: Mary Lyon's Dream of Women's Education" at the Mary Lyon Church in Buckland on April 13. (See calendar section for details.)

Gill says she aims to place Lyon in her own context of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and has been "reading about social conditions in Western New England at that time, thinking about women's work, the understanding of how families fit into local communities, and the place of religion and spirituality," all to show "what an extraordinarily radical idea Lyon had in imagining a full-blown humanistic education for relatively poor New England rural women. It is an astonishing vision of women's full participation in the community, and the education necessary for that, that we have yet to fully realize," according to Gill.

Works in progress--Professor of Spanish Alberto Sandoval has been hard at work. In December, the Puerto Rican daily newspaper El Nuevo Dia named his book of poems New York Backstage/Nueva York tras bastidores one of its books of the year. Over the past two months, Sandoval has traveled to Harvard, CUNY, and Agnes Scott and Allegheny Colleges to deliver four papers or lectures dealing with issues including Latina and Latin American women writers, gay and lesbian literature since World War II, and Latino theater. Meanwhile, he is working on two books: a study of theatrical and cultural representations of Latinos/Latinas for the University of Wisconsin, and a two-volume overview of Latina theater in the United States for the University of Arizona.

What's new with you? - Send items of interest to Emily Weir, Office of Communications, or email eweir@mtholyoke.edu.